TORONTO, Ont. – The Blue Jays picked up their first series win against the Yankees (in five tries) by scoring early and often and, unusually for them, burying the opposition early.
Ryan Goins had a terrific night, with a single, a double, a walk, two runs scored and some sparkling defence. I would have made him the subject of one of my three things, but Shi Davidi did a pretty swell write-up about Goins and the Blue Jays’ situation at second base, and you can find it here.
Here are three other things that jumped out to me about the Blue Jays’ rubber-match victory:
YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO SEE –
The Blue Jays built their big early lead with a lot of help from the Yankees, including one of the stranger plays one will ever see in the bottom of the first.
J.P. Arencibia took a called third strike with two out and Yanks’ catcher Chris Stewart completely whiffed on it, allowing Arencibia to reach first base. I had never seen a hitter reach on a called third strike before.
To make matters worse, Stewart chased the ball down and fired a desperation heave to try to nail Arencibia at first and his throw hit Arencibia and deflected into short right field, allowing Brett Lawrie (who had been on second) and Rajai Davis (who had been on first) to score.
Instead of the first inning being over with the Blue Jays leading by two – which is what would have happened if the catcher had simply caught a fastball that was in the strike zone – the Jays scored two runs on a strikeout, doubling their lead to four.
GOT YOUR FUNDAMENTALS RIGHT HERE –
It wasn’t just the ludicrosity of the two-run strikeout in the first inning that helped out the Blue Jays, either. Arencibia led off the third with a slow ground ball that Alex Rodriguez thought might go foul. It didn’t, and Rodriguez fielded it at the third-base bag with time to still make a play on Arencibia, but after he grabbed the baseball he appeared to forget both what it was and what one is supposed to do with the thing that was in his hand. A couple of seconds later, he put his hands on his knees with a look of absolute exasperation.
While the Yankees were kicking the ball all over the field and suffering the occasional brain-lock, the Blue Jays spent the evening putting on a clinic.
First, Anthony Gose executed the hit-and-run to perfection with one out in the bottom of the third. With Arencibia running, Gose hit a broken-bat grounder right through the hole that Derek Jeter had opened when he left to cover the steal, allowing Arencibia to go to third, from whence he scored on the next pitch when Jose Reyes hit a fly ball to deep enough centre for a sacrifice fly. Reyes showed off his fundamentals by scoring that runner from third with less than two out.
In the fourth, the defence took over. With Rodriguez at first, Soriano at third and one out, the Yankees threatening to get right back in the game, Mark Reynolds drove a double off the right-field wall, just out of the reach of a leaping Moises Sierra. An alert Gose went over to get the carom and fired it in to Goins, who made a perfect relay throw home to nail Rodriguez at the plate.
In the fifth, both Gose and Edwin Encarnacion flashed some serious leather. Gose ran down a sinking liner by Stewart, diving headlong at the last minute to pick it off the turf, and Encarnacion made a Superman dive to his right to snare a Curtis Granderson line drive. Both plays were simply gorgeous.
MAKING A CASE –
Todd Redmond rebounded from his worst start of the season to throw 5 2/3 innings of three-hit baseball, picking up his second major-league win and the first since his Blue Jays’ starting debut seven weeks ago.
Redmond was only in trouble in that fourth inning – the inning that has bitten him in the two of his nine starts in which he’s been knocked around. After the Gose-to-Goins-to-Arencibia relay that notched the second out of the fourth, the righty retired six of the next seven, leaving with a flourish by striking out Alfonso Soriano and Rodriguez.
If you throw out his two poor starts – in Anaheim and (shudder) Houston – Redmond has posted a sparkling 2.87 ERA with a sensational 1.062 WHIP as a starter for the Blue Jays. The problem with that, though, is that those numbers have been compiled over just 37 2/3 innings in seven starts, an average of just over 5 1/3 innings per outing, which isn’t nearly good enough.
Redmond has performed well, though, and will continue to get chances in the Jays’ rotation as the calendar turns to September. He’s certainly showing more than enough for the Blue Jays to consider him for a Carlos Villanueva-type role with next year’s team, which would make him a very valuable asset indeed.